William Caxton
William Caxton (?1422-1491) was an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. As far as is known, he was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England. He was also the first English retailer of printed books (his London contemporaries in the same trade were all Dutch, German or French). Life Overview Caxton, born in the Weald of Kent, was apprenticed to a London mercer. On his master's death in 1441 he went to Bruges, and lived there and in various other places in the Low Countries for over 30 years, engaged apparently as head of an association of English merchants trading in foreign parts, and in negotiating commercial treaties between England and the Dukes of Burgundy. His 1st literary labour was a translation of a French romance, which he entitled The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, and which he finished in 1471. About this time he learned the art of printing, and, after being in the service of Margaret Duchess of Burgundy, an English princess, returned to his native country and set up at Westminster in 1476 his printing press, the first in England. His Recuyell and The Game and Playe of Chesse had already been printed – the 1st books in English – on the Continent. Here was produced the first book printed in England, The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers (1477). Caxton obtained Royal favour, printed from 80 to 100 separate works (many of them translations of his own), and died almost with pen in hand in 1491. His style is clear and idiomatic.John William Cousin, "Carew, Richard," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, 77-78. Web, Dec. 22, 2017. Youth and education William Caxton's date of birth is unknown, and his parentage is uncertain. He was born somewhere in the Weald of Kent, perhaps at Tenterden. The name, which was apparently pronounced Cauxton, is identical with Causton, the name of a manor in the parish of Hadlow, and was a fairly common surname in the 15th century. The date of Caxton’s birth was arbitrarily fixed in 1748 by Oldys as 1412. Blades, however, inferred that in 1438, when he was apprenticed to Robert Large, he would not have been more than 16 years of age. This would place his birth in 1422-1423.Caxton, Britannica, 587. Large was a rich silk mercer who became sheriff in 1430 and lord mayor of London in 1439, and the fact of Caxton’s apprenticeship to him argues that Caxton’s own parents were in a good position. Large died in 1441, leaving a small bequest to Caxton, and his executors would be bound to place the young man where he could finish his term. He was probably sent direct to Bruges, then the central foreign market of the Anglo-Flemish trade, for he presently entered business there on his own account. Mercer In 1450 his name appears in the Bruges records as standing joint surety for the sum of £100; and in 1463 he was acting governor of the company of Merchant Adventurers in the Low Countries. This association, sometimes known as the “English Nation,” was dominated by the Mercers’ Company, to the livery of which Caxton had been formally admitted in London in 1453. Caxton’s position is definitely asserted in 1464. In that year he was appointed, together with Sir Richard Whitehill, to negotiate with Philip, duke of Burgundy, the renewal of a treaty concerning the wool trade, which was about to expire. These attempts failed, but he was again employed, with 2 other members of the Mercers’ Company, in a similar but successful mission in October 1468 to the new duke, Charles the Bold, who earlier in the year had married Princess Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV. The last mention of Caxton in the capacity of governor of the “English Nation” is on the 13th of August 1469, and it was probably about that time that he entered the household of the duchess Margaret, possibly in the position of commercial adviser. In his diplomatic mission in 1468 he had been associated with Lord Scales, afterwards Earl Rivers and one of his chief patrons, and at the Burgundian court he must have come in touch with Edward IV. during his brief exile in 1470. Printer He had begun his translation of the popular medieval romance of Troy, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, from the French of Raoul le Fèvre, early in 1469; and, after laying it aside for some time, he resumed it at the wish of the duchess Margaret, to whom the MS. was presented in September 1471. During his 33 years’ residence in Bruges Caxton would have access to the rich libraries of the duke of Burgundy and other nobles. About this time he learned the art of printing. His disciple, Wynkyn de Worde, says that he was taught at Cologne, probably during a visit there in 1471, recorded in the preface to the Recuyell. Blades suggests that he learnt from Colard Mansion, but there is no evidence that Mansion set up his press at Bruges before 1474. Caxton ceased to be a member of the gild of St John (a gild of illuminators) in 1473.Caxton, Britannica, 588. Mansion and Caxton were partners or associates at Bruges, where Caxton printed his Recuyell in 1474 or 1475. His 2nd book, The Game and Playe of Chesse, from the Liber de ludo scacchorum of Jacobus de Cessolis through the French of Jehan de Vignay, was finished in 1474, and printed soon after. The last book printed by Mansion and Caxton at Bruges was the Quatre derrenieres choses, an anonymous treatise usually known as De quattuor novissimis. Other books in the same type were printed by Mansion at Bruges after Caxton’s departure. By September 1476 Caxton had established himself in the almonry at Westminster at the sign of the Red Pale. Robert Copland the printer, who was afterwards one of Caxton’s assistants, states that Caxton began by printing small pamphlets. The first dated book printed in England was Lord Rivers’s translation (revised by Caxton) of The Dictes or sayengis of the philosophres (1477). From this time until his death in 1491 Caxton was busy writing and printing. His services to English literature, apart from his work as a printer (see Typography), are very considerable. His most important original work is an 8th book added to the Polychronicon (vol. viii. in the Rolls Series edition) of Ralph Higden. Caxton revised and printed John of Trevisa’s work, and brought down the narrative himself from 1358 to 1460, using as his authorities Fasciculus temporum, a popular work in the 15th century, and an unknown Aureus de universo. His press was, however, not worked for purely literary ends, but was a commercial speculation. For the many service-books which he printed there was no doubt a sure sale, and he met the taste of the upper classes by the tales of chivalry which issued regularly from his press. He printed Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, and himself translated from French the Boke of Histories of Jason (1477?), The Historye of Reynart the Foxe (from the Dutch, 1481 and 1489?), Godfrey of Boloyne; or. The siege and conqueste of Jherusalem (1481), The Lyf of Charles the Grete (1485), The Knyght Parys and the Fayr Vyenne (1485), Blanchardyn and Eglantine (1489?), The Foure Sonnes of Aymon (1489?); also the Morale Proverbs (1478), and the Fayttes of Armes and of Chyualrye (1489) of Christine de Pisan. The most ambitious production of his press was perhaps his version of the Golden Legend, the translation of which he finished in November 1483. It is based on the lives of the saints as given in the 13th century Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, but Caxton chiefly used existing French and English versions for his compilation. The book is illustrated by 70 woodcuts, and Caxton says he was only encouraged to persevere in his laborious and expensive task by the liberality of William, earl of Arundel. The idleness which he so often deprecates in his prefaces was no vice of his, for in addition to his voluminous translations his output as a printer was over 18,000 pages, and he published 96 separate works or editions of works, with apparently little skilled assistance, though later printers, Wynkyn de Worde, Robert Copland and possibly Richard Pynson, were trained under him. The different founts of type used by Caxton are illustrated by Blades and Duff, and there is an excellent selection of Caxtons in the British Museum, in the University library at Cambridge, besides those in private hands. A record price for a Caxton was reached in 1902 when Mr Bernard Quaritch paid £2225 for The Royal Book (1487?), a translation of the popular Somme des vices et des vertus. His books have no title-pages, and from 1487 onwards are usually adorned with a curious device, consisting of the letters W. C. separated by a trade mark, with an elaborate border above and below. The flourishes on the trade mark have been fancifully interpreted as S.C. for Sancta Colonia, implying that Caxton learnt his art at Cologne, and the whole mark has been read as 74, for 1474, the date of his first printed book. This device was first used in an edition of the Sarum missal, printed for Caxton by George Maynial in Paris, and was subsequently adopted with small alterations by his successor at the Westminster press, Wynkyn de Worde. The first of his books containing woodcut illustrations was his Myrrour of the World (1481), translated from Vincent de Beauvais, which has diagrams and pictures for the assistance of young students. He had used a woodcut initial letter in his broadside Indulgence printed in 1480. No record of Caxton’s marriage or of the birth of his children has been found, but Gerard Croppe was separated from his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Caxton, before 1496, when Croppe made certain claims in connexion with his father-in-law’s will. Death Caxton's precise date of death is uncertain, but estimates from the records of his burial in St. Margaret's, Westminster, tend to show that he died near March of the calendar year 1492. However, George D. Painter makes numerous references to the year 1491 in his book William Caxton: A biography as the year of Caxton's death, since according to the calendar used at the time (March 24th being the last day of the year), the year-change hadn't happened yet. Painter writes: "However, Caxton's own output reveals the approximate time of his death, for none of his books can be later than 1491, and even those which are assignable to that year are hardly enough for a full twelve months' production; so a date of death towards autumn of 1491 could be deduced even without confirmation of documentary evidence."Painter, 188. Caxton and the English language Caxton printed four-fifths of his works in English. He translated a large number of works into English. He translated and edited a large amount of the work himself. Caxton is credited with printing as many as 108 books, 87 of which were different titles. Caxton also translated 26 of the titles himself. His major guiding principle in translating was an honest desire to provide the most linguistically exact replication of foreign language texts into English, but the hurried publishing schedule and inadequate skill as a translator often led to wholesale transference of French words into English and numerous misunderstandings.James A. Knapp, "Translating for Print: Continuity and Change in Caxton's Mirrour of the World," in: Translation, Transformation, and Transubstantiation, ed. Carol Poster and Richard Utz (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998), pp. 65-90. However, the English language was changing rapidly in Caxton's time and the works he was given to print were in a variety of styles and dialects. Caxton was a technician rather than a writer and he often faced dilemmas concerning language standardization in the books he printed. (He wrote about this subject in the preface to his Eneydos.Caxton's Chaucer - Caxton's English) His successor Wynkyn de Worde faced similar problems. In the year before his death he complained in the preface to his Eneydos of the changing state of the English language, a condition of things which he did as much as any man to remedy. He printed Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1478? and 1483), Troilus and Creseide (1483?), the House of Fame (1483?), and the translation of Boethius (1478?); Gower’s Confessio Amantis (1483), and many poems of Lydgate. Caxton is credited with standardising the English language (that is, homogenising regional dialects) through printing. This facilitated the expansion of English vocabulary, the development of inflection and syntax and the ever-widening gap between the spoken and the written word. However, Richard Pynson, who started printing in London in 1491 or 1492 and who favoured Chancery Standard, was a more accomplished stylist and consequently pushed the English language further toward standardisation. It is asserted that the spelling ghost with the silent letter h'' was adopted by Caxton due to the influence of Dutch spelling habits. Recognition On 12 November 1954 a memorial to Caxton was placed on the wall of the south transept of Westminster Abbey, just outside Poets' Corner.William Caxton, People, History, Westminster Abbey. Web, July 11, 2016. References *N.F. Blake, "Caxton, William (1415~24–1492)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Web, July 1, 2006. * Wikisource, Web, Dec. 23, 2017. *Lienhard, John H. (2006): How Invention Begins: Echoes of Old Voices in the Rise of New Machines. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-530599-X pp. 165–168. *George Painter, William Caxton - Biography. Chatto & Windus, 1976. Notes External links ;Books * *Images from Myrrour of the Worlde from the State Library of Victoria *The English Charlemagne Romances, Parts III and IV, The Lyf of the Noble and Crysten Prynce Charles the Grete, Translated from the French By William Caxton And Printed By Him 1485. *Game and Playe of the Chesse A Verbatim Reprint of the First Edition, 1474 ;About *William Caxton in the Encyclopædia Britannica *William Caxton at BBC History *Caxton, William in the Dictionary of National Biography *Caxton's apprenticeship to Robert Large *The Introduction of Printing into England and the Early Work of the Press: The First Book printed in English (1907), from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol II *Caxton's Views on the English Language. *William Caxton and the Canterbury Tales at the British Library *Caxton's Canterbury Tales: The British Library Copies Images and full transcripts of the whole of Caxton's two editions of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; a fuller version of this is published on CD-ROM by Scholarly Digital Editions Category:15th-century English writers Category:English writers Category:English translators Category:15th-century translators Category:1492 deaths Category:15th-century births Category:English book publishers (people) Category:English printers Category:15th-century English people Category:People from Kent Category:Printers of incunabula Category:Translators to English Category:People of the Tudor period Category:15th-century writers Category:British book publishers (people)